


we’re laughing at the grave (eyes like wildflowers)

by disheveledcurls



Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-10
Updated: 2013-02-10
Packaged: 2017-11-28 21:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disheveledcurls/pseuds/disheveledcurls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with lying is that it’s addictive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we’re laughing at the grave (eyes like wildflowers)

**Author's Note:**

> Also written for Dai. Companion piece or sequel to "if she insists, then i insist," with some spoilers for the Secret Santa episode. (Let me know if you notice anything wrong with my traslation of the coeur de pirate song quoted at the beginning.) One-shot, Kate-centric.

_old teenage hopes are alive at your door_

feist, **1234**

_we hold hands like children with happiness on our lips_

_and we walk together with a resolute step_

_so our heads shout at us, “stop everything!”_

coeur de pirate, **comme des enfants**

 

 

Her life is a war of sorts and war is never over.

(He thinks the war ended long ago. He is a hopeless optimist. She wouldn’t change a thing.)

 She knows she’s expected to overcome this little obsession, tonight of all nights. She saw this coming with him. He understands her feelings, but he still thinks he’s right, so in a way he doesn’t understand at all, which is fine. She doesn’t want him to understand, to _know_. This is the sort of thing you don’t get unless it’s ripped you apart too, and she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy. (Okay, maybe she would, but most definitely not on him). Still, they’re awkward and sad, these technical difficulties – like repeatedly stepping on someone’s toes while dancing because you have two left foot and it’s never going to change regardless of dance lessons, good intentions, soft shoes. She’d tell him to get a proper dance partner, but then again where would that leave her? No: her selfish need welcomes these mismatches, clings to imperfection for dear life. She won’t pretend this is healthy (she won’t pretend she’s not crazy): they are what they are, no need to speak of it, let’s leave it at that.

 (She does not know what she’ll do if he brings up the question of her feelings for him. She does not know how to make him see the abysmal gap between her boundless love for him and the fairytale-y, rom-com love he so desperately craves. _You are Prince Charming but I am a film noir villainess._  She does not know how to explain that there are things not even time can fix, that sometimes you get to the finish line and you realize there’s no such thing as winning).

 She lies to him about her reasons for staying at the precinct and feels horrible about it. The problem with lying is that it’s addictive, a pitfall she’s not sure she can avoid. (She hates this. She’s supposed to be honest. But then again she’s supposed to have a Mom to spend Christmas with and life took that away from her, so evidently things –and people- are never what they should be. So what the Hell.) The other problem with lying is that what it masks is always worse than the lie itself. What’s her alternative anyway? Standing in front of him and saying _Listen, we don’t fit, don’t you see, we don’t fucking fit._ Crying because love is the one thing that was supposed to be easy and she is _so_ tired of fighting and especially terrified of fighting for lost causes. Giving up, giving up, giving up: he wants a life of shiny happy moments made eternal, like roses pressed between the pages of Shakespeare, and she won’t hold it against him, but what is her place there? Holding his hand in cocktail parties, entertaining artsy people with brutal murder stories, being a shiny happy version of herself, owning a summer house in the Hamptons? She’s not a paper doll and she can’t see herself playing Mrs. Castle.

  _You are to love me even if I am the rain on your parade. You are to love me because of it._

 (But she is wrong every time she lets the detective in her win, making her believe love is just another game in which both players are bound to lose. Love is a battlefield and this was never about matching: it is about make-believe. It is about addiction. It is about being partners-in-crime. It is about not letting go and the pieces back together until the whole stops falling apart. It is an end in itself, not the train ticket to a better place.)

_And I am keeping watch, and that is my tradition._ There is a reason for everything and she is stubborn enough to hold her ground despite his frustration. He has to get used to compromise and she has to give her best so that they can make some happiness in the space between who she is –despite his best efforts- and his overwhelming expectations. No presents and she needs to be here, like a guarding angel watching out for the children of the city that never sleeps. So what if she misses the Christmas tree, kisses under the mistletoe and the feast he’d probably treat her to? This is her purpose in life, and a pretty noble one at that. He says she shouldn’t have felt like she had to hide anything. He smiles and leaves her alone. Something inside her cracks because she can read people better than anyone and she sees in his eyes that although he understands, he is disappointed. She has a sudden change of mind and rushes out, leaves somebody else to do the watching.

 (Or rather, it is a change of heart. Her mind will pretty much stay the same. It says: _I will always be sad and we do not belong_. But her heart is a compass pointing to him and it prompts an impromptu _yes_ to the child-like happiness of Christmas. She will not be carefree, but she will not say _no_ to joy, either. She’s learned that much.)

 She knocks on the door and as usual, they find they were thinking the same thoughts. _It’s time for a new tradition_. Perhaps she’ll always like the old one best, but she does love him, powerlessly and completely, so she’ll try to find a balance between doing what puts her conscience at ease and what is right for them both.

 His flat is a winter wonderland. She kisses him by the Christmas tree and does not falter – if she has to fight she will keep on fighting for this wonder, for this miracle wrapped in idiot winds. It’s a tough task – like learning to walk on tightropes-, but she won’t give up as long as he keeps trying, as long as he holds her hand and picks her up when she falls. After all, this is no longer about being ready. She _is_ ready. He’s taught her to believe in magic, and now she’ll teach him to believe in broken people.

  _Ours is a different kind of happiness but it is happiness all the same._

 


End file.
